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For those of you who would like to better understand composite video, then this short presentation will give you the basics. It is specifically for NTSC, but PAL is quite similar and so the general information is good for both.

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Could someone please take a few minutes to explain to me why the overwhelming use of video transmission in this hobby is analoge, as opposed to been digitaly encoded, despite the tech & performance advantages that digital encoding offers?

I may be able to talk all day about antennas, but I'm afraid that is pretty much the only technical aspect about this hobby I can comment on - regards the rest of it, I'm on a steep learning curve.

Thanks guys

Helix1

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Could someone please take a few minutes to explain to me why the overwhelming use of video transmission in this hobby is analoge, as opposed to been digitaly encoded, despite the tech & performance advantages that digital encoding offers?

Here's one way to explore the answer: Please post a link to a retailer of a suitable digitally modulated (e.g., spread spectrum) wireless video system that can be used on a popular hobby R/C FPV model aircraft. It has to be affordable (we're just hobbyists), have sufficient frame rate, extremely low latency, and useful range.

Until we can buy such a thing at an affordable price, the technology is just a tease.

But there is hope. Some development is going on, at least a little bit. So one day we will have such a thing.

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I done some online searching - there is hardware around, and some it smaller and lighter (some of the covert body worn gear) but none of it falls into the price range that hobby flyers would tolerate.

I think this is an example of one of those products or solutions that are difficult to implement because so many factors have to be taken into consideration before it can be justified e.g. how small do you make it if you have to cater for as many hobby flyers as you wil need to to justify it on an inventory, how much can be invested in the codec (you get jolly good H.264 codecs and you get jolly bad H.264 codecs - the better the image and lower the latency, the more power it needs and the more it costs), do you base the codec on software or on hardware, what modulation method is used, should the camera output be composite, component or S-video input, do you add encryption etc etc ...... they all incur cost and they all add latency. And thats only half of it - then there is the receive end that has to be put together, and again, how you implement the transmit side is going to determine largely on how the receive end gets configured, and what it costs!

Doable as a one-off project for a dedicated amatuer with the skills - yes. Not so easy to do as a product which will appeal sufficently to the FPV flying community on a commerical basis.